Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2017/ia/paper-1/10d/b/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 ia Paper 1 10D b Solution by
Codex 0 Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-03
The upper bound follows immediately from convexity, sinceFor the lower bound, writeApplying convexity and rearranging givesChoose a fixed with . Applying these bounds with and shows that the difference is trapped between quantities of order . Both tend to zero, so every convex function on an open interval is continuous.
Now suppose is a local minimum but some satisfies . For sufficiently small , the point lies in the neighbourhood on which is minimal, whereas convexity givesa contradiction. ThusDifferentiability at the minimizer is unnecessary: is convex, has its global minimum at , and is not differentiable there.
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